Apples to Apples
by Elielephant
Summary: How did I get into this mess? All I wanted was an A on a History test. I tried studying the normal way, but failed miserably. I tried the Animus and Dad cut me off like it was an over used credit card. So, the last option was the Apple, but this is NOT what I wanted, Juno. I wanted the INFORMATION on the Revolutionary War, NOT be there personally. Seriously Juno? You suck.


I wasn't pleased with Desmond's end in Assassin's Creed III; you never know how much you love a character until they are gone. So here, I shall make something where Desmond doesn't meet that ultimate fate in AC III (though I believe he didn't..._you know_ (trying not to spoil, but I think I kinda did already)...I think he is just passed out or Minverva will bring him back, right! Right...? *sigh* This is my pity party, sadly...).

So, there will be a lot of making up a plot line here, but I have a grand plan that will be good, hopefully. Also, the two sections may seem different(?) since I wrote the second part first and the first part second, if that makes any sense. Also, sorry if there any mistakes, I always miss them and I'm always happy when people tell me where they are; I don't bite.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything AC, but plot and OCs are mine.

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Chapter 1

Sliding along the wall, her footsteps were soft as she tip-toed slowly to minimize the creaking of old floor boards. The house was not vacant, another person was on the other side of the wall she had her back pressed against. It was thin and noise traveled through it as if it wasn't even there, but the last time she checked he was sound asleep in front of the television like an old fart, which he was. An old fart that could kick her ass, but that was beside the point, the point was getting to the basement undetected. Her plan was proving to be rather easy as it carried out smoothly; she was confident that she would not fail.

She smirked at the wooden door, _easy-peesy-lemon-squeezy_, she thought as she opened the door, but the rusted metal hinges decided to screech loudly like an alarm. _Mayday-mayday_, her mind screamed and she cringed at the hideous sound. Closing her eyes tightly, she waited to hear the heavy footsteps come her way to investigate, but all she heard on the other side of the wall was an abnormal loud snort and then the faint sound of snoring.

She hadn't waken him up, which was a good thing, and carefully, she continued to slowly open the door and tried not to flinch every time a creak echoed in her ears.

When the door was open enough, she squeezed through. It was a tight fit, but she managed to get through and then close the door behind her; this time with less of a creaky mess. Even in the dark, she knew where to go, but there was the faint blue glow guiding her way as she traveled deep into the ground.

Just as the floorboards were creaky, so were the steps, but she wasn't as cautious as she was before since she didn't have to worry about that old fart waking up. She was allowed and able to do as she pleased now, and that's all that mattered. She needed to do this for she was a measly high school freshman failing her American History class and there kinda wasn't enough time to study _everything_, as in the test was only a day away. Have you ever tried to study the _entire_ Revolutionary War, plus cause and effect along with aftermath all in a day? Yeah, it wasn't a pretty picture and she was bound to get a big fat _F_ on her test if she didn't find a quick way to get the information.

Luckily, she had the piece of handy-dandy machinery to do such a thing: the Animus.

The machine was slick, metallic white with pulsing red lights and thin black wires that connected all the pieces. Her father had gone in there at least twice a week for a few hours, usually to find ancient artifacts of the first civilization or just to peek into history curiously because Shaun wanted to see. She watched her father lay there in a state of deep sleep while Rebecca monitored screens to run the data collected, making sure everything was okay. It looked harmless enough, but her father would never allow her fall into the machines dark clutches, as he told her. He said the Animus was useful, but it could be a menace when it wanted to be. The bleeding effect is what he called it; the double edged sword. It can help, but also harm. But that was only due to overexposure.

She would merely spend a few hours in the machine tonight and the next, and that was it. After talking up Rebecca about Baby, she knew she could figure this all out, and then go on auto pilot, right? Right; this was no time to doubt herself now. She was on mission, a mission to her past. Connor would give her all the answers, or at least the answers to the parts he played a roll in.

Without anymore delay, she typed away at the thin keyboard beside the Animus, using all the knowledge Rebecca taught her. Then finally, the machines whirled with power, buttons lighting up and wires filling with heat. The Animus was on.

Rubbing her hands together, she bit her lip from laughing as she smirked. "Time to go, Baby; let me see Connor—" then she yelped when something rammed into her gut.

The wind was momentarily taken from her lungs as she felt a force lift her harshly off the ground and over something. She blinked in confusion, only seeing white and an up close image of something. Leaning back a ways, she saw that is was the faint imprint of an eagle on the back of a pure white jacket. There was only one person that had such a design on their hoodie.

"_Dad!_" She screeched, pounding her fists against his back as he started to stroll casually away from her primed ticket to a solid A. "What're you doin' here? You left hours ago! _And put me down, damnit!_"

Her father grunted and simply adjusted her on his shoulder before continuing his walk back towards the stairs. "I came back because I had a bad feeling in my gut, and it seems like I was right. Shame on you."

"Uh, I was doing nothing wrong," she quickly said.

"Yeah? You don't say?" Her father huffed skeptically. "Then why were you done here poking around the Animus?"

"Um...I needed to go on the computer," she replied, her tone sounding stressed as she tried to ease her way out of this mess.

Her father caught the lie light red light, though. "Bullshit," was all he said on the subject.

"Okay, okay, I get it," She groaned in defeated. "I'm not supposed to use the Animus, _ever_; you kinda drilled that into my head, ya know?"

"Obviously not," her father corrected in annoyance.

"I'm going through my rebellious years," she replied curtly, blinking rabidly when the light of the kitchen blinded her. "I'm going to explore and experiment with bending the rules."

"That's your excuse for trying to use the Animus?" Her father laughed dryly. "That's terrible; you in general are a terrible liar."

"I am not," she scoffed in defense.

"Yes you fucking are," Her father pointed out as they walking into the living room.

"Well, I'm a terrible liar because I was told 'speak nothing but the truth and the whole truth'," she scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"And that is a wonderful quote to live by," her father huffed approvingly. "And when we get to your room, I want the real reason to snooping around the Animus," and then he turned his attention away from her and to the old fart sleeping peacefully on his couch in front of the old television. "Dad."

There was only a snort from the older man.

"_Dad!_ Wake up, damnit!" Her father screamed and kicked the side of the couch to shake it, making the old fart jolted away from slumber.

Her grandfather rose to his feet in a flash and ignored the old creak of his bones and whipped out a pistol that had been lounging in the holster hanging from this belt. "_Damn Templars! How'd you find us?_" He roared and pointed the gun at the intruders that interrupted his nap, but then he saw who it was. "Oh, Desmond, it's just you," and he lowered his gun with a questioning look. "When did you get back? Why are you carrying Annie on your shoulder? Did I miss something?"

Desmond's brows furrowed together and stared at the man known as his 'wise-old-father', aka: old fart, in annoyance. "Just do something useful and got to the basement and turn the Animus off. _God_, you are such a bad babysitter."

"Hey!" Annie screeched in offense. "I don't need a babysitter! I'm fourteen years old!"

"Obviously you need one," her father huffed. "But not _Grandpa_," he stressed the word as he called in the general direction of where the old fart had gone off to. "Because he _sucks_ at watching family for only two hours!"

"_Shut up, Desmond, before I whoop your ass!_" Was the old fart's response.

Desmond merely huffed dismissingly at the words and continued on with his own journey to his daughter's room. Once there, he kicked open the door then threw her upon the bed and then stood there with arms crossed over his chest and waited for her answer, the _real_ one.

Annie sat there with her legs crossed and hands folded in her lap, fiddling with her thumbs sheepishly. "_Well_," she started off, clicking her tongue lightly and looked to the side to avoid eye contact with her father. "You see, I have a test on the Revolutionary War, and I wanted to study the quick way and relive Connor's life, ya know? There's no harm in that, right?"

"Yes there is harm in it," he corrected coldly. "I told you want could happen if you're not careful."

"I was gonna be careful," she defended simply.

"You were about to go into the Animus without someone monitoring you!" He shouted as he scowled angrily at her. "There is a whole process to being in the Animus; you don't just switch a button on and slide right in! It's not a game!"

"I know it's not a game!" Annie cried, her eyes narrowing darkly. "All I want to do is learn, learn the truth that the school doesn't know! You of all people should know that!"

"That does not matter at all! This has to do with you disobeying my rules!" He pointed out harshly. "You know I told you not to go into the Animus and even if I ever allowed you to go in the Animus in the first place it sure as hell wouldn't let you do it alone. _Everyone_ would be there because something could go wrong, anything could go wrong and you could be stuck in the Animus for who know how long, or your brain could get fried or something even worse, you could _die_."

"But Rebecca says that only happens because of over exposure!"

"It doesn't matter what Rebecca says because I said no! No, you can't go into the Animus because of all these things, damnit. If I told you once, I told you a thousand times, Annie: _going into the Animus is off limits._"

Annie remained silent, locking into the staring contest between her father, but she never won the fights against her father. She sighed deeply and looked down at her lap, sincerely apologizing. "I'm sorry..."

The harsh scowl on her father's face lightened as he sighed and closed his eyes. Reopening his eyes, he then sat down on her bed. "Annie-kins, I know you want to do will in History, especially since you aren't doing good, but this isn't the way," he told her and leaned over to pick up her History book from the nightstand. "Now you said that your test was on the Revolutionary War, right?" He wanted to confirm as he flipped to the pages. "I can help you study, when's your test?"

"Um...Friday..." she replied timidly.

Her father stopped flipping through the pages abruptly and snapped his head towards her, staring blankly. "It's Wednesday night and you haven't studied, at all," he elaborated emotionlessly, but then he slammed the book shut and tossed it aside so he could rest his head in a hand, annoyed. "Annie, why did you wait until the last minute, _again_."

"I dunno..." she sheepishly said.

Her father sighed deeply and slowly got up. "Well, you wasted hours of studying over your little...scheme, so now you only have a day. Don't worry about studying now, it's way to late and you'll just exhaust yourself. Just go to bed; you have school tomorrow after all," and then he turned to leave, shutting the door behind him silently.

* * *

Annie laid wide awake in bed, feeling defeated, rolling over and over in her bed, unable to go to sleep. This test was haunting her; she didn't want to fail the course and retake it again. All she wanted was to go in the Animus once, especially now since her test was only a day away. And besides her test, the Animus was a great way to figure out the truth, and that is something her father of all people should understand.

The truth; that was the most important thing to her father and he taught her that well. In her childhood, he was rather blunt when with the truth and told her how it was straight when she asked questions. Why is the sky blue, she would ask at the age of only four, and he would give her the in depth answer that it was the refection of the ocean, not that it was God's choice to paint it that color like most parents would say. The truth in the fullest is what came out first. Granted, sometimes there were _some_ things he needed to avoid for the sake of her innocence, but that aside, that was not always the case, especially when a lie was physically hurting her.

Like the myth of Santa Claus, for example; parents, they want their children to hold onto that little bit of Christmas spirit as long as they could, but her father couldn't be like that. Two weeks before Christmas Day in the sixth grade, when she came home from school with a bloody nose and a black eye due to a fight over Santa Claus being real or not, he came out and told her the cold-hard, honest, truth: Santa was not real. She had been devastated, cried until her eyes were blood shot, her nose running like a waterfall and her words no longer understandable. But like any child, she got over it within only a few hours and still enjoyed the holiday as it came and went, just without the tales of old Saint Nick coming down the chimney and how she needed to be good unless she wanted coal in her stocking that year.

Truthfully, she had learned to enjoy the honesty from her father. Most of the time. Sure, it got annoying to get such forward answers to every single little thing; like she didn't need to know that her outfits were considered ugly when she was experimenting with new looks.

Though, she could understand where he was coming from in a way. After everything he went through, all the coded riddles, side-stepping answers and being left in the dark for years changed him.

He told her the stories of what he went through, what happened to him and what he did. The old fat, Shaun, Rebecca, and even her mother were against her knowing the truth. They tried to convince him that she was just not old enough to understand, too young to comprehend the meaning of it all, the war that raged on even after doomsday: December 21, 2012. But her father ignored them all, casting off each and every warning and countered to their banter with the question of _when_ was the right time; the moment it crossed the line of too late? That was what happened to him, and he didn't want her, his daughter, to go through what he went through; he wanted her to be prepared with the knowledge, the skills, _everything_ that would help her through something like that if she was not careful, like he was.

He was blunt when he told her, only six years old; sat he down on the floor with only a large wooden box between them. With his forever bandaged right hand over that box, he began his story. He said he was taken by bad people called the Templars, a large organization under the name of Abstergo so that they would remain hidden to the world, but still have a firm grip. He didn't know why he was taken, and he never understood clearly until it was almost too late. By the time he knew what it was these people wanted, they were in the last leg of the race and the weight was fully on his shoulders. And with luck, he was able to save the world, yet there was a price, and even more, it wasn't saved just yet. He had to come back and save it from someone just as powerful, just as evil as that organization. It took a handful of the right people, but again, he was secretly able to save the world than once more thanks to one special item.

That's when he showed her the Apple. He had opened the lid of the old wooden box, pulling out the object also known as a Piece of Eden. It was pure gold, the sphere glowing lightly within the palm of her father's hand. The odd designs craved with in the shell of Apple pulsed with golden power, making her brown eyes widen with awe. In all her young years of life, she had never seen some like that; the only thing she could compare it to was the gold sphere from the movie _Treasure Plant_. Her young mind was curious of it, almost drawn into it like a magnet to the refrigerator, but when her little fingers reached out to touch it, her father wouldn't allow it. He dropped it quickly back into the wooden box and sternly told her that she was never to touch it; it was dangerous. All it brought was trouble, causing illusions and death, making the weak minded pay dearly.

She had been confused by his words, but he simply sighed and had mumbled that maybe the others were right: she wasn't ready just yet to hear more about the Apple. So, he simply put it all away, shoving that wooden box under his bed where it barely saw the light of day.

After that day, the Apple was lost in her memories, only being brought up on small occasions when something was to make her father bring it up. But now that the Apple was on her mind, she started to wonder if that would help her pass this upcoming test. But she only pondered it for a moment before passing out into sleep.


End file.
